The Grand Canal, a great man-made project completed in ancient China, has witnessed Chinese history spanning over 2,500 years. On June 22, 2014, it     1    (include) on the World Cultural Heritage List.

Over a thousand years, the Grand Canal has been meandering (蜿蜒) through eight provinces and cities along     2     (it) course of 3,200 kilometers and connecting five major rivers, which     3    (be) the longest and oldest canal in the world. It is a precious heritage     4    (pass) down to us by our ancestors.

In modern times, as     5     result of social unrest, climate change, economic change and other impacts, the Grand Canal has been troubled by a series of problems such as river channel cutoff, water     6    (pollute), and water ecological damage. It was once the Chinese people’s dream that the Grand Canal could be restored to the past glory.

    7     the beginning of the new era, many places along the Grand Canal have launched ecological restoration projects. While maintaining the original form of the river course, they have focused on scientific protection and cultural heritage,     8    (highlight) the cultural, historical and ecological value of the Grand Canal.

On April 28, 2022, the Grand Canal was refilled with water for the first time in a century, after a 14-day water-supply project. With     9    (far) development of the project, the Grand Canal has gradually restored the past shipping capacity. Boat tours     10     cargo transportation have become available along the course. The “Golden Waterway” turns clean and lively again.

Planting trees is a great way to reduce carbon emissions, but protecting our oceans and coastal ecosystems can do the same?

“Blue carbon” refers to organic carbon which     1     (store) by the oceans and coastal ecosystems. Mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses are the three main coastal ecosystems that can store large     2     (quantity) of blue carbon. They play a major role in reducing carbon dioxide in the air.

    3     (compare) with ecosystems on the land, coastal ecosystems can store carbon     4     (constant) in the long term. When plants on the coast die, the organic deposits that they become will slowly disappear thanks to the flowing seawater above,     5     means the carbon will not escape easily but remain stored for hundreds and thousands of years.

China is one of the few blessed     6     all three coastal ecosystems. Tidal marshes are the largest coastal ecosystem in China,     7     (occupy) an area of 5,448 square kilometers. In comparison, mangroves have a     8     (small) size. According to the latest data, the total area of China’s mangrove forests in 2020     9     (be) 289 square kilometers, and over 70 square kilometers of mangroves are newly planted and restored now.

By protecting and restoring these coastal ecosystems, we can avoid enormous amounts of stored blue carbon going back into     10     atmosphere, and safeguard wildlife living in these ecosystems.

Giant Amazonian lily pads(睡莲叶) are the world’s largest and strongest floating plants and the giant Amazonian water lily has long fascinated scientists, architects and artists for    1    (it) beauty and sheer size. Yet how the lily’s leaves are able to grow as large as 10 feet across, strong enough to support the    2    (weigh) of a small child,    3    (remain) a mystery—till now. “    4    we showed through our experiments and modeling was that these leaves are uniquely strong and have great opportunities    5    (enable) them to grow really big,” says Thorogood, from a team of British and French scientists. In fact, the giant lily    6    (discover) by British explorers in South America in 1801 and symbolized the British Empire. But it became more than    7    symbol as botanists repeatedly attempted to grow it at home. The British gardener and architect Joseph Paxton was the first to    8     (success) grow the giant water lily. It inspired his design of the Crystal Palace, a London landmark of cast iron and glass that was built for the Great Exhibition of 1851. “Nature was the engineer,” Paxton said. “Nature has provided the leaf    9    special structures and supports that I,    10    (borrow) from it, have adopted in this building.”

The plum tree (梅树) is native to China, mainly growing in Suzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou, with the biggest plum garden in Wuxi. The plum tree     1     (normal) flowers in late winter during January and February when the land is pale in color. It is regarded as one of the Three Friends of Winter along     2     the bamboo and the pine tree (松树). Because its flowers emerge before its leaves and     3     takes a long time to come into flower, the tree, often shown with a crane (仙鹤),     4     (link) with long life. The plum tree can grow to 4-10 meters tall and its flowers in bright colors of red, pink and yellow have a refreshing smell. The plum flower has long been recommended as one of China’s     5     (nation) flowers, the symbol of strength and humbleness with the courage     6     (stand) against the undesirable trends. And above all, it is a messenger (报信者) for spring and     7     (bring) hope for a better season ahead.

The Daoist philosopher Laozi is said to have been born beneath a plum tree,     8    has been a popular subject for poetry for     9     (century). The Song poet Lin Bu is said to have spent his spare time     10     (feed) cranes and planting plum trees near West Lake in Hangzhou.

Our cat is dead. My daughter,     1     is just two years old, knows this. But she keeps asking where it’s gone and what has happened to it.

My parents     2    (be) straightforward m admitting they didn’t know what happened after our death when I asked them in my childhood. But I want to give my daughter a slightly     3    (good) answer to her question about the topic than     4    (they).

One day when she asked the same question, I told my daughter that the cat was out in the field, I told her that when animals, including people, died, they were usually put into the ground and that their bodies became     5    (variety) pretty flowers, grasses and trees. I passed my hand over her blonde hair, gently touched her rosy cheeks and checked her     6    (react). She didn’t appear     7    (trouble). Instead, she seemed excited by the thought of one day becoming a flower.

Then, I reached     8     my daughter’s hand and asked her     9    (take) a walk in the field. Together, we saw new leaves growing in the sun and pretty flowers waving in the gentle wind. Suddenly, I realized that although we were bound to become plant fertilizer, we were not the lonely humans aimlessly wandering in the world. We were a part of the earth. We were connected by the beautiful plants in     10     field.

Cotton bags have become a means for brands，retailers and supermarkets to indicate a planet-friendly mindset-or, at least, to show that the companies are aware of     1     overuse of plastic in packaging.

So far, so Earth-friendly? Not     2     (exact). It turns out the wholehearted acceptance of cotton bags may actually have created a new problem.

An organic cotton bag needs to be used 20,000 times to reduce     3     (it) overall impact of production, according to a 2018 study. That equals daily use for 54 years-for just one bag.

Cotton is water-intensive, and figuring out ways of     4     (deal) with a bag in an environmentally low-impact way is not nearly as simple     5     people think, according to an environmental science professor at the University of Maine.

You can’t, for example, just put a bag in a bin. Even when a bag does make it to a treatment plant, most materials used to print logos onto them are PVC-based and thus not     6     (recycle); they’re “extremely difficult     7     (break) down chemically,” said Christopher Stanev, the co-founder of Evmu, a Seattle-based textile recycling firm. Printed     8     (pattern) have to be cut out of the cloth; Mr. Stanev estimates 10 to 15 percent of the cotton Evrnu receives     9    (waste) this way.

That’s not to say cotton is worse than plastic. In the end, the     10    (simple) solution may be the most obvious. “Not every product needs a bag,” Comey says.

Environmentalists are getting more worried about the harmful effects of fast fashion on the environment.

Fast fashion is the mass production of clothes at a low cost, which are put in shops and online quickly     1     (create) a high demand. Manufacturers (制造商) make 100 billion items of clothing every year and this is expected to grow     2     60 percent by 2030. It is reported     3     many of the clothes end up in the trash and are not recycled. The way people are buying clothes also adds to the problem of clothing waste. Many years ago, people went to stores and     4     (try) clothes on. They took more time and thought     5     (careful) before they bought clothes. They also wore them for a much     6     (long) time compared with current consumers. Today, people order cheap clothes on the Internet for     7     (convenient) and if they don't like them, they throw them away. This is possibly leading to     8     throwaway society.

Another negative effect on the environment that can not     9     (ignore) is caused by the chemicals used to make the clothes. These chemicals cause pollution to the environment as well as health problems for people     10     (work) in clothes factories.

Located in Northwest China’s Gansu Province, the Bingling Temple World Heritage Tourist Area     1     (cover) 150 square kilometers. It is home to the Stone Grottoes (石窟) of Bingling Temple (a component of the World Heritage of the Silk Road).

With magnificent natural scenery civilization, the tourist area lies along     2     may be the most charming section of the upper reaches (上游) of the Yellow River. Thanks to     3     (it) places of interest integrating ancient and modern culture, the Bingling Temple World Heritage Tourist Area has become     4     good place for ecological     5     (tourist), science education, and leisurely vacations.

    6     the largest stone grottoes in Gansu Province, the Bingling Temple Grottoes are a world cultural heritage with a history which stretches back more than 1,600 years ago.     7     (particular)，the earliest of China’s well-preserved statue inscription (题词) during the Western Qin State     8     (discover) in the No. 169 grotto. This grottoes inscription, statues, and murals (壁画) provide     9     (rely) evidence for the confirmation of the history of the Bingling Temple Grottoes and the early stone statues in China.

With the grotto murals and stone statues of different historical periods, the Bingling Temple Grottoes are believed     10     (have) historical, artistic and academic value.

A Second Life for Chopsticks

There are approximately 600 sushi restaurants in Vancouver,    1    (consequent) making it the sushi capital of North America. Before the pandemic, over 100, 000 chopsticks and other wooden tools     2     (use) once and thrown out every day, according to a 2018 study by Metro Vancouver. In 2016, Felix Bock was     3     27-year-old young man, studying sustainable construction materials at the University of British Columbia. It was when he was sitting in a sushi restaurant     4     he realized he was holding an underused resource in his own hand, Thus Chop Value was born.

Böck’s start-up recycles used wooden chopsticks and     5     (transform) them into household objects, from chessboards to bookshelves. The company makes about 30 such products, as well as other custom projects, with each     6     (employ) a varying number of chopsticks. So far, the company,    7    products can be found in department stores in other major Canadian cities, has collected and repurposed almost 33 million chopsticks nationwide. The company’s reforms don’t end there, however.    8    (produce) in “micro-factories” with workers that collect chopsticks from local restaurants, ChopValue’s items are mainly sold by local     9     (businessman). There are three so far in Canada—in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal—and Bock would like to get to 10 by the end of the year. “We’re trying to expand in the     10     (fine) way of all times,” he says. “We never want to do things the way they were done before- We’re onto something great here, something inspiring.”

Compared to dogs, cats are usually believed     1    (be) less friendly to humans. However, a new study shows that cats bond to us just as     2    (strong)as dogs.

Researchers at Oregon State University, in the United States, invited the owners of 117 cats to take a test,     3     is often used to test the bonds dogs have with their human     4    (caretaker).

In the six-minute test, cat owners walked into an unfamiliar room with their pets. After two minutes, the owners left the room,     5    (leave) the cats alone, which caused the cats to feel     6    (stress). When the owners returned two minutes later, about two-thirds of the cats came to greet them. The cats then     7    (go) back looking around the room, but still returned to their owners now and then. These cats, the researchers said, saw their owners    8     a source of security in an unfamiliar place. “The more we find out about cats,     9    more we're seeing that they are     10    (society) creatures,” Kristyn Vitale, lead author of the study, said.